Newly discovered Frog species gives birth to tadpoles

It’s been taught in primary school since ages that mammals give birth to young ones while frog and other amphibians lay eggs. But that’s not entirely true as a newly discovered species of frogs that also happen to have fangs give birth to live tadpoles. Now if that won’t blow you away…. I don’t know what will

This discovery took place when Jim McGuire, a researcher from University of California was tromping through a rainforest in Sulawesi, which is an Indonesian island located near Borneo. He said that he stumbled across what appeared to be a single male frog but when he reached out to hold it, Jim quickly realized that he was in fact a she because she squirted tadpoles all over his hand. McGuire didn’t get a chance to make a video footage of the frog giving birth, but he did find more tadpoles in nearby pools.

This reinstated the fact that some frogs do give birth to their young ones. These frogs belong to a group of Asian fanged frogs that were discovered some decades ago by McGuire’s colleague, Djoko Iskandar who happens to be a zoologist at Indonesia’s Institut Teknologi in Bandung, but the species had not yet been reported in any scientific paper up till now.

Iskandar had previously stated that such frogs had existed but the scientific community hadn’t seen any proof of the animal mating or birthing tadpoles until McGuire’s discovery. McGuire and his colleagues named the species as Limnonectes larvaepartus.

About Carol Harper

Carol Harper began her career as a screenwriter before turning to journalism. Before earning her Bachelor of Arts with a major in Creative Writing, Carol travelled across Europe and Asia to find both herself and inspiration. She enjoys covering health & science topics.